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Autumn tree tops

On a sunny Saturday morning in mid-October, what better thing to do than go for a walk in the countryside with your dog!  Tilly and I had a very happy stroll down the track, round a couple of huge fields, and home again.  

The tree tops, against a lovely autumn sky, were looking good!
The silver birch and conifer below had Clematis vitalba running through it.  Old man's beard, or travellers' joy, is a wild clematis which runs wild over my native Hampshire.  All over the south of England actually!  I have hardly seen it anywhere in Scotland, until this year!  It seems to have popped up in odd places and I couldn't be more delighted!  It's a plant of my childhood, of late summer/early autumn, and I love it.
I did a double take here.  Blue sky and leggy, airy branches of a gum tree - I could have been back in Australia!!  It was unexpected, but rather wonderful,  
 and all that's missing is a cuddly koala, dozing in the crook of those branches!
The hollies in this part of the world are dripping with ripening berries - all ready for Christmas!
I was talking to a couple of East Lothian's countryside rangers recently and I asked them if there had been any reports of ash die-back.  Nothing so far, which is fantastic news.  Long may that last.  The ash tree in the photo below is certainly looking very healthy, and its leaves gently turning a soft buttery gold for autumn.

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